Close-up: Is radio a good entry point for grads?

Undervalued and often ignored, radio continually struggles to win the
respect, and even interest, of creatives made giddy by the bright lights
of the telly.

It is termed by one ad exec as "the shitty bit no-one else wants to do".
For example, there were no executive creative directors, and few
creative agencies, at this year's radio Advertising Awards. The radio
industry needs to recognise and celebrate great creativity if it's to
improve the medium's fortunes.

As a result of radio's poor status in creative agencies, or possibly as
a symptom of this, radio briefs have historically been flung in the
direction of wide-eyed new starters. One of the main reasons is money.
Paul Burke, a radio writer/producer at Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO, says:
"There's less at stake with radio. TV is very expensive and there's more
media spend."

Also, those who create radio ads don't get the glory and recognition
that creatives on TV or even poster campaigns can expect. And so those
looking to raise their profile will studiously overlook radio.

Advertisers are also accused of undervaluing radio as they often assign
the junior member of their team to oversee radio campaigns.

However, senior industry creatives believe radio is wrongly maligned and
it's a great opportunity for grads to flex their creative muscles. It
allows creatives to stretch their imagination and bring ideas to life on
a low budget, as well as helping develop craft skills that many young
people joining the industry are bereft of. Creatives can also get a
sense of the tone of voice of a brand with radio, as well as being a
testing ground for ideas and a chance to work with layering and sound
effects, as well as actors.

Radio also gives graduates the opportunity to do that rarest of things
in advertising - make mistakes. Mistakes aren't always a bad thing -
young creatives can learn a lot from them.

However, as advertising diversifies and clients begin looking for
multi-platform campaigns that include anything from a widget to a social
networking application, there is a school of thought that the younger
tech-savvy employees who don't have 20 years of baggage should not be
sidelined from the bigger briefs but that their youthful exuberance
should be embraced.

While radio is still used, it will continue to be a viable testing
ground for the young bucks, but the days when this was their sole
calling are definitely disappearing.

Got a view? E-mail us at campaign@haymarket.com

CREATIVE - EWAN PATERSON, EXECUTIVE CREATIVE DIRECTOR, CHI &
PARTNERS

"Are radio briefs the best briefs to give junior creatives? Well, it
depends on how good the brief is. If it's a single-minded proposition
without 28 seconds of mandatory voiceover, then, maybe, yes. If it's a
complicated, quadruple-headed proposition, then definitely not.

"Truth is, you should give the people who are learning their trade the
simpler, arguably better briefs rather than defaulting to an 'oh, they
do the radio' decision.

"What radio does have is the opportunity to own the project, and
ownership is a great way to learn and get better. Get a radio campaign
bought and you're suddenly doing the casting yourself, you are directing
those actors and running the production.

"Then there's the other truth: junior creatives are free from the
baggage that 20 years in the business can give you. And as a result, the
young, fresh-minded creatives can be a better bet for something truly
original on the big brief that requires everything from an MPU to a TV
commercial to an app. After all, while us oldies know our FM from our
AM, it's the 23-year-olds who know the modern world best."

PLANNER - OLLIE GILMORE, PLANNING GRADUATE, GREY LONDON

"Is there such a thing as a 'radio brief'? As far as I've seen, every
brief is about a problem rather than a media channel. After that,
sometimes radio features as part of the solution.

"As it happens, my planner's baby teeth gnashed on AOL and web-based
campaigns for milkshakes, before I got near the radio. But as a medium,
it presents some great challenges. Radio ads are commonly seen by the
public as the headlice of the airwaves, which sets the kind of challenge
that any industry member - young or old - should salivate over.

"Radio's constraints demand more precise and more creative solutions. As
Torture Garden regulars might put it: we do our best stuff when we're
tied down.

"What's more, sound can be pretty persuasive stuff. Drench some fireside
charm in whisky and murmur something about fighting them on the beaches,
and you can turn the fag-end of an empire into a fortress."

CREATIVE - MELISSA CAIN, JUNIOR CREATIVE, MCCANN ERICKSON

"When you start out in the industry, there are a million and one things
you have to learn in a very short space of time.

"This is where radio can be an extremely effective learning tool. Not
only does it give you valuable production experience, it also gives you
the chance to hone your skills for other mediums by forcing you to
distil a thought down to one succinct and memorable idea.

"But radio is much more than just a training ground for other media
platforms. A lot of young teams overlook how creative you can be with
radio as so many of them dream about doing the next big TV or print
campaign.

"However, radio briefs give teams a chance to really showcase their
creative and strategic thinking, because unlike in other mediums, where
budgets can make a big difference, radio offers a level playing field,
enabling you to make a great idea for not a lot of money."

PLANNER - ANDY LEAR, EXECUTIVE PLANNING DIRECTOR, PUBLICIS

"As every dog owner knows, feeding off scraps thrown from the table
breeds a hunger for more.

"That hunger is the lifeblood of our industry - the desire to crack any
problem, however small, whatever the media, in a jealousy-inducing way.
It dies and so do we.

"Radio has always been a good place to try something new but with the
current pressure on advertising revenue, opportunities for fresh
thinking are greater than ever, and stations more willing than ever to
offer up presenters' involvement and airtime for branded content.

"But there's a flipside to this question: are radio briefs the best use
of young creatives' abilities from the agency's perspective? Why would
any forward-thinking agency choose to restrict some of its most
open-minded and tech-savvy talent to working largely on one relatively
traditional media when it could be giving them the freedom to find
completely fresh answers in channels that haven't even been thought of
yet?"

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